Well so i woke up this morning hoping to find my meat 80% done. I was in for a surprise. The long and short is the roof structure caught fire and caved in on itself. Luckily nothing surrounding (in regards to property or utilities) was damaged and no people or wildlife creatures were hurt either. The roof didn't exactly ignite so much as smolder away (so it seemed). The meat was obviously wrecked, though i did tear it apart to look at it, and what was not burned to heck, was tender on the inside.
what was damaged: All the roof. The wood header atop the upper door. The top course of brick may need to be replaced (gotta check if its brittle) I think some of the insulation is spent inside the door (upper 3" But i can carve that out, either put in lumber, or fill it with fire block foam. oh my pride ;)
What is left: The block, the grates (though they need a good scrubbing) the lower door, the coal-basket i made for the bottom. so really 80% or so is left. below is the photo
What I think went wrong. I burned about 3 logs in the smoker just to heat it up. As i was getting ready to put the meat on I took them out, scooped up the coals (probably a chimney and a half of lit) and put them atop my coal basket. I had put about 20# of unlit charcoal spread in the 12x12x36" basket (so about 2-3" all across) and added about 3/4 chimney of freshly lit briquettes to the 1.5 chimneys of coals from the fire. Mind you- this isn't a
Weber chimney, the smaller cheaper generic ones. then i put the basket in my bottom door atop my fireplace grates.
Where i think it went wrong is putting the two chunks of smoldering logs atop the basket of coals. I also put about 3-4 unlit hickory chunks. The temperature did generally raise quite quickly after that- my digital thermometer said 380 at one point. So i blocked my damper off by 2/3 hoping to choke it down... and the temperature was dropping- slowly Evidently that did not do anything to cool it enough. In hindsight i should have just left the coals and the few unlit chunks and called it good in general i think that's what killed it from the heat aspect.
How the structure failed- My structure from top to bottom was, 1/2" osb covered with aluminum flashing, wood studs/batt insulation, 3/4" osb. asphalt roofing and flashing. The bottom element was lap jointed with two 20" pieces of aluminum flashing. with screws every 6" or so to hold them to the wood- so thats probably where the failure started. aluminium probably melted, wood ignited- rest is history.
With all that said I have to figure out new way to build a roof/structure- and I'm open to suggestions. durable suggestions ;)
below is a photo of what i woke up to after i opened the door.